A day after the Patna High Court acquitted all the 26 accused in the infamous laxmanpur-Bathe massacre in which 58 people were butchered to death in December 1997, the Nitish Government on Thursday decided to challenge the court order in the Supreme Court. A JD(U) MP even has rued that in the judicial system of the country it was very difficult for the poor people to get justice.
“The Government has decided to file an appeal against the Patna High Court order in the Supreme Court,” said lalit Kishore, principal additional advocate general of the Patna High Court. He also said that the Government decided to challenge the Patna High Court order after getting opinions from the State law department and senior advocates.
“While going through the Patna High Court order it was found that on some minor contradictions the bench of the High Court provided benefit of doubt to all the accused persons and acquitted them,” said principal additional advocate general lalit Kishore.
He also added that the State Government would challenge the court order at the earliest by producing documents related to the evidence against the accused persons. He further said that the laxmanpur-Bathe incident was “not a normal case of murder but it was a carnage”.
While pronouncing the judgement the division bench of the Patna court comprising justice VN Sinha and AK lal had cited “lack of sufficient evidence” as the reasons for acquitting the accused persons.
Earlier, the lower court judge Vijay Prakash Mishra had convicted all the 26 persons while awarding death sentence to 16 of them and life imprisonment to the remaining 10 of them “after finding them guilty in the massacre”.
The convicts had subsequently filed appeals in the Patna High Court challenging the order.
Reacting over the Patna High Court judgement JD(U) leader and party Rajya Sabha MP Shivanand Tiwari has expressed shock over the judicial system of the country.
“How it is possible that the lower court had convicted all the 26 accused persons on evidences which were found not relevant by the High Court,” asked he. He also said that the judicial system of the country is such that the poor people would not get justice.
“In fact the judicial system of the country needs a serious change. In this system the feudal forces and privileged sections of society dominate and the convicts of Bathe like carnages would be acquitted till such forces have domination”, said Shivanand Tiwari.
Meanwhile, the left party CPI-Ml reacted strongly against the acquittal and blamed Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for it. The Ml members also staged protest against the High Court judgement on Thursday.
“It’s a massacre of justice to the poorest of the poor and quite shameful”, said the Ml leaders. The also blockaded the National Highway in Arwal and Jehanabad districts during the protest.
While announcing that his party would also move to the apex court against the Patna High Court verdict, party general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya also said that his party would appeal to the Supreme Court to appoint a Special Investigation Team [SIT] like it did to probe the Gujarat riots of 2002.
“The Supreme Court should take cognisance of the acquittal of the massacre convicts and order an impartial probe under its direct supervision like it did for Gujarat riots,” he said.
In one of the worst incident of caste carnage of central Bihar in late nineties members of the dreaded Ranvir Sena had allegedly attacked the luxmanpur Bathe village in Jehanabad district on the night of December 1’1997 and massacred the lower caste dalits.
Altogether 58 villagers, including 27 people and 10 children were butchered to death in the massacre prompting the then President of the country declaring it as a “national shame”.